St Theodore the Studite's Defence of the Icons

This book is an investigation of the icon theology of St Theodore the Studite, mainly as it is presented in his three refutations of the iconoclasts, even if some passages from his letters are also brought into the picture. The book fills a gap in scholarly literature since, even though treated by some scholars, his doctrine of the icon has never been the subject of such an extensive or in-depth investigation before. In addition to the main elements of his defence of the icon, like the Christological issue, the relation between image and prototype, the question of veneration, his explanation of why we may say of an image that ‘this is Christ’, and his innovative thinking on the representative character of icon production, there is an introduction that places Theodore in the history of Byzantine philosophy: he has some knowledge of traditional logical topics and is able to utilize argumentative forms in countering his iconoclast opponents. The book also has an appendix in which the author tries to show that the making of images is somehow natural given the character of Christianity as a religion.